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May 16, 2015

I've been cooking up a tiny baby boy for the last 8 months; due to arrive in July!

We are so excited to meet our little man, and if I'm being honest, I'm still trying to wrap my head around what it's going to be like to parent two little people at once.

I think Liv is going to LOVE being a big sister. She talks about "baby brother" all the time and regularly lifts my shirt up just to kiss my tummy and say hi to him.

This pregnancy has been night-and-day different from my first. The all-day morning sickness started earlier, lasted longer and was far more severe this time around. It is so true when people say that your body remembers what to do when you get pregnant for the second time. My belly popped so much quicker. I feel like he is huge even though he's not, and I'm carrying him much lower and straight out. I've gained more weight this time, been so much more exhausted and uncomfortable, and have had an insatiable craving for sugar. I also suffered from migraines during my second trimester that I never had when pregnant with Liv.

Oh the joys of bringing children into the world! I know it will all be worth it the second I pull that little babe to my chest and kiss his tiny head.

We recently took a family babymoon to Hawaii. Here are a few photos from our trip.

Dec 16, 2014

It's official, 20 months is my favorite age! The things that come out of this little turkey's mouth are both hilarious and sweet, sassy and thoughtful. She soaks everything up like a sponge and she is unbelievably empathetic– she really has the best personality! There's not a chance I'm biased about this either.

Here are some the "kill me with cute" things Liv is doing currently:

I have never formally worked with her on numbers (or anything else for that matter). I don't find it necessary to force learning at this age but I'm constantly talking to her and she LOVES books so we read all throughout the day. A few weeks ago, she started saying, "One, two, free, go!" before she'd jump off a step or run down the sidewalk. Then one day she counted to 10, unprompted and out of the blue. "One, two, free, four, six, nine, ten!" She did it again and again the exact same way and has ever since.

I am very big on kids having manners so we work on saying please and thank you a lot. This morning when I set her breakfast in front of her, she said, "Here ya go, thank you, welcome!" Just covering all the bases :)

She says, "Ta-da" when she completes something, "bummer dude" when something unfortunate happens, and is obsessed with picking her toe jams (thanks papa!). She knows how to put her own socks and shoes on and insists on having a turn buckling her highchair straps and zipping her coat. The other day I overheard her saying, "Pee-Ew! Papa tooted." Papa wasn't even home.

Current cute words:

-Heggie (heavy)

-Beeyo (video)

-Peekies (pictures)

-Wib (Liv)

-Wogurt (yogurt)

-Whood (food)

-Kinnie (her cousin Corynn who we call Corynnie)

-Tadin (her cousin Cavan)

-Damaw (grandma)

-Peas (please)

-Oss (off)

-Tinky (stinky)

I have to censor myself when I talk to the dogs now that Liv picks up on everything. She walks outside on the back deck and waves her finger in the air shouting, "no, no, no barkin!" and demands that they "way down" when they come inside. She tells them to "zip it" quite often.

She also says, "top it!" and "hey!" in a very sassy manner when she is objecting to something.

Liv is a very reasonable kid. I can often use logic to explain why we have to keep our coat on when we're outside and why we can't eat crackers for every meal. She is also cautious and considerate. If I ask her to be careful of the hot oven door, she will be. She is curious yet respectful of the fragile ornaments on the Christmas tree and is sure to only look with her eyes.

If someone is hurt or sad, she leans in to their face and says, "you OK?" in a sweet, high voice while cupping their chin in her hand. When they respond that they're OK, she says, "I'm OK too."

I hope to never forget how adorable and remarkable this age truly is. Each day gets a little sweeter with this precious girl.

Oct 23, 2014

There's a great open space trail just minutes from our house that Liv and I have enjoyed getting to explore. Positioned next to the trail head sits a large cattle farm and each time we go, we're sure to make a stop to say hi to all the "moos."

I don't know if it was the endorphins or the Vitamin D or the fact that I feel closest to God when I'm outside in nature, but the last time we walked the trail, I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude for this life that I'm living.

With so much going on in the world–so many ugly things happening and people who are hurting–there I was, free and safe and healthy and ALIVE.

What a blessing to have eyes to see the beauty around me!

How wonderful to be able to walk and move and play with my daughter!

What an honor just to be breathing!

I'm making it my intention not to take a single breath for granted on this amazing journey.

Oct 21, 2014

So many things about this picture make me want to simultaneously giggle and weep. She looks like such a big kid walking with her hands in her pockets, sporting that glorious grin. I am reminded how quickly time passes when I compare this year's pumpkin picking photos to those taken last year.

Liv was just a tiny six month old last time, obliging me with a few festive photo ops. But this year, she truly got it. She wanted to pull the wagon all by herself. She picked out her own pumpkin, ran through the corn maze and waved at the scarecrow.

My baby is a year and a half now, recently weaned and insisting she do many things without my help. How quickly these little turkeys go from totally and completely dependent on you for survival, to this "I can do it myself" attitude!

Wishing you and yours all the best in pumpkin carving, apple picking and cozy sweater wearing this fall season!

Aug 12, 2014

Recently, Liv has begun to understand what I'm doing when I pull out my iPhone or camera to take her picture. She gives the cheekiest grin, says "cheeeeese!" and then immediately asks to see the picture.

It is so much fun watching her personality unfold at this age. She has a great sense of humor, can be silly and wild, but also likes to stick close to her mama in unfamiliar situations. When Keane asks her if mama is her best friend, she enthusiastically shouts, "YEAH!"

Everyday is a new adventure with her and the belly laughs keep coming– from both of us!

Aug 8, 2014

As I mentioned in a previous post, the Ray family moved! From the city! To the country! Kind of. We left the hustle and bustle of Denver and bought a house in a quaint little rural subdivision, sandwiched in the middle of suburbia. All the houses in the neighborhood are spread out on large properties and are zoned for animals, so if we get a wild hair one day, we are allowed to have 2 "animal units." That is the equivalency of two horses, or one horse and one cow, or ten lamas, or one-hundred chickens, or five alpaca, fifty chickens, one large pig and two-and-a-half goats. The options are endless on the livestock front, really.

We casually started the house hunt back in April after realizing that we were bursting at the seams of our two-bedroom bungalow. We bought that house in 2012 as an investment property and planned to turn it into a rental once we grew out of it. Well, the time came quicker than we expected (spoiler alert: you acquire a whole bunch of shit once you have a kid) and we were ready for a bigger space.

We expected to end up in a suburban neighborhood (because that's what you do when you have a family, right?) so we started our search there. We looked up north where we would be closer to family and in a good school district, but the thought of living right on top of your neighbors in a house that looked like all the rest was fairly unappealing to us so we put the search on hold for a bit.

One morning we got a text from Keane's mom saying there was a For Sale By Owner sign that just went up in her neighborhood (which happens to also be up north and in a great school district). It was a cute 4 bed, 2 bath farm house on an acre of land with a horse barn and giant 2-story playhouse in the back! I assumed there was no way we could afford it because I knew what homes were selling for in that area, but I called on it anyway. I was pleasantly surprised by the price and set up a time to go over and take a look. As the seller took us around the property, Keane and I sent silent messages back and forth via hand squeezes. We tried to play it cool as he showed us the brand new kitchen they just remodeled, the original hardwood floors in perfect condition, the crazy amount of storage space (did I mention we have a ton of shit?!), the apple tree and raspberry bushes, the horse stables, and the fenced-in lot that would be heaven for our baby and dogs. We casually asked if we could take a minute alone to discuss. Once the seller was out of earshot, we both agreed, through various tones of excited squealing, that we had to have this home. We could picture ourselves having more children there, growing into the space and maybe eventually adding on in the future if we needed. That's one of the benefits of having a bit of land and no HOA– there aren't limits to what we can do. And if there's one thing I know about my hubby, it's that he hates restrictions. Since the house was listed FSBO and we were able to get a discounted price by not using a realtor, we had to do all the contracts and negotiating on our own, which was hugely intimidating. Like a couple of rookies perusing a weekend garage sale, we walked back over to the sellers and said, "Uh, so we'd like to buy your house. How do we do this?"

Luckily, the sellers were a dream to work with and it wasn't a big deal not using any agents. We developed a really good relationship with them from the beginning. We learned that we were the first people to look at the house just 12 hours after the sign went up and that they really wanted to sell it to a young family. Fate? I think yes.

With the contract underway, the next step was finding renters for our Denver house. Thankfully, it's located in a really great area so it was unbelievably easy to rent. I posted an ad on Craigslist and within 24 hours I had over 30 people asking to see it before the open house. We chose a few that we thought would be good fits, hosted private showings, and rented it for well over our monthly payment– without even having to do the open house. The whole process went so smoothly and we LOVE our tenants. It's great to know that someone is taking good care of our house and loves it as much as we do.

We've been in the house now for about 6 weeks and are still getting settled. Projects like pulling weeds, hanging curtains and updating brass fixtures take about three times as long with a toddler running around, but it is slowly starting to feel like ours. Life is very different here. In Denver, Liv and I walked everywhere: to get groceries, to meet friends at the park, to get a mid-afternoon coffee. Keane biked to work and we rarely used our cars. His commute now is about 35 minutes and I often feel like a soccer mom (sans minivan) shuffling around town from stop to stop.

But we have space to roam and time feels slower here which is what we've yearned for since moving back from Wyoming. For the first time in my life, I don't have cable and we have no intention of getting it. It is shocking to even say this, but I have no idea what is happening in the lives of my Real Housewives! We even lived without internet for a couple weeks when we first moved in. My priorities are different here. Liv and I sit on the deck and listen to the roosters crow in the morning instead of watching the Today Show. We pick raspberries and check on the baby birds in the barn. We inspect worms and dragonflies and get really dirty. Life is different here. Life is good here.

The dogs are in hog heaven with all the space. We lose Daphne on an hourly basis admits the chest-high weeds in the back and Cash has already killed his first rabbit. I found a 6-foot long bullsnake right by Liv's foot and almost had a heart attack. Keane caught it and released it into the field behind our house. That guy. So humane, it's gross.